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Multifaith Third Spaces: Digital Activism, Netpeace, and the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change

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Multifaith Third Spaces: Digital Activism, Netpeace, and the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change religions Article Multifaith Third Spaces: Digital Activism, Netpeace, and the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change Geraldine Smith 1,* and Anna Halafoff 2 1 Sociology and Criminology, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Hobart, TAS 7005, Australia 2 Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Melbourne, VIC 3125, Australia; anna.halafoff@deakin.edu.au * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 3 January 2020; Accepted: 24 February 2020; Published: 26 February 2020 Abstract: Multifaith spaces typically imply sites where people of diverse faith traditions gather to participate in shared activities or practices, such as multifaith prayer rooms, multifaith art exhibitions, or multifaith festivals. Yet, there is a lack of literature that discusses online multifaith spaces. This paper focuses on the website of an Australian multifaith organisation, the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), which we argue is a third space of digital activism. We begin by outlining the main aims of the multifaith movement and how it responds to global risks. We then review religion and geography literature on space, politics and poetics, and on material religion and embodiment. Next, we discuss third spaces and digital activism, and then present a thematic and aesthetic analysis on the ARRCC website drawing on these theories. We conclude with a summary of our main findings, arguing that mastery of the online realm through digital third spaces and activism, combined with a willingness to partake in “real-world”, embodied activism, can assist multifaith networks and social networks more generally to develop Netpeace and counter the risks of climate change collaboratively. Keywords: multifaith spaces; interreligious studies; sacred places; embodiment; materiality; third space; activism; digital activism; climate change 1. Introduction This paper examines how multifaith networks are using online spaces to deal with what could be considered the greatest challenge of our contemporary time, climate change. Online spaces generate crucial components that can aid multifaith activism. This includes the capability to mobilise many dispersed individuals into action, to create shared symbols and stories in which religiously diverse individuals may find commonality, and to embody new modes of being that lead the viewer to take their digital activism into the “real world”. Material dimensions of online spaces also have the potential to mediate the viewers’ experience with both the broader community and with an experience of the sacred. Despite the potency of online spaces, research into multifaith online spaces is a lacuna in the field of interreligious studies. This paper seeks to remedy this gap in the literature by drawing together the themes of climate change, online spaces, and the multifaith movement to demonstrate how the interactions between these spheres are shaping the material world. The study of multifaith spaces arises from a broader field of interreligious studies that emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century in response to the growing presence of religion in the public sphere. A sub-field within it centres on research of multifaith/interfaith engagement and social movements. Religions 2020, 11, 105; doi:10.3390/rel11030105 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religions 2020, 11, 105 2 of 16 Anna Halafoff (2013) in her study of the global multifaith movement outlined its four main aims as follows: “[D]eveloping understanding of diverse faiths and of the nature of reality; • C hallenging exclusivity and normalising pluralism; A ddressing global risks and injustices; and C reating multi-actor peacebuilding networks for common security” (Halafoff 2013, p. 163). She also argued that Netpeace was a preferable option to netwar for countering global risks such as terrorism and climate change, in response to terrorism studies scholars’ John Arquilla’s and David Ronfeldt’s (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001, p. 15) observation that “it takes networks to fight networks” in their book on Networks and Netwars. Halafoff’s (2013, p. 169) theory of Netpeace, modelled by the global multifaith movement, “acknowledges the interconnectedness of global problems and solutions, and particularly the capacity of critical and collaborative networks, including state, non-state and religious actors co-committed towards common good, to solve the world’s most pressing problems” together. The global multifaith movement, which includes a multitude of international and more local multifaith networks and organisations, has thereby always had an activist, peacebuilding agenda and has played a role, among many other strategies, in preventing and countering violent extremism and negative stereotypes of religious minorities. It has also, at times, such as in the late 1980s–early 1990s following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the mid-2000s after the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and currently alongside the School Climate Strikes movement, campaigned for solutions to climate change and the resulting environmental crises (Halafoff 2013). However, according to Fahy and Bock’s (2018) survey of the multifaith movement in Delhi, Doha, and London, many proponents of the multifaith movement still place too much emphasis on formalised dialogue rather than on collaborative social action. Whilst recognising that dialogue is important, Fahy and Bock(2018) recommend that the multifaith movement learns to broaden its repertoire beyond dialogue in order to engage with global risks such as climate change more effectively. In recent years, religious activity has been extended into digital spaces, as religious organisations increasingly use the internet to spread their messages and to increase their presence and influence online (Campbell 2012; Hoover and Echchaibi 2012; Tomalin et al. 2015). Katherine Marshall(2017, p. 34) notes that although new media “opens new vistas” and can be used to rally global support and mobilise multifaith networks in response to crises, due to a generational divide, religious leaders have been slow to exploit the potentials of social media. An additional challenge faced by multifaith organisations is that they must compete, in what Zeynep Tufekci(2017, pp. 30–31) calls the “attention economy”, with voices who seek to spread misunderstanding and hatred. An exception to the trends, and the focus of this paper, is the website of an Australian multifaith environmental network, the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC). ARRCC is an example of a multifaith network that is engaged in digital activism and that is highly effective at using the online realm to connect faith-based activists across Australia and mobilise them to take collaborative action on climate change. ARRCC formed in 2008 with the sponsorship of the Climate Institute. According to its website (ARRCC n.d.a), ARRCC was launched at a ceremony at the Centre for Islamic Sciences and Human Development in Lakemba, Sydney. They have 140 formal members, as well as the membership of 35 religious organisations (ARRCC n.d.a). ARRCC uses the online realm to generate the momentum needed to perform its climate activism by mobilising a large and religiously diverse network of volunteers. Among many actions, they have been involved in campaigning against construction of the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, Australia. They also organise and facilitate Living the Change workshops, encourage religious communities to switch to renewable energy and sustainable practices, and are proponents of the fossil fuel divestment movement. The ARRCC website is a directory for past and future protest actions; a resource that provides handbooks and guides on religious ecology, sustainability, and non-violent direct action; and a means to connect to ARRCC’s network. Religions 2020, 11, 105 3 of 16 Online spaces are interpellated with broader politics and poetics related to sacred space. Specifically, the ARRCC website speaks to a wider context of climate change politics, whereby the sacrality, and therefore value, of the natural environment is a space of religious and secular contestation. We will demonstrate how the material mediation of the online sphere affectively influences the lived bodies of its viewers by generating coherent shared narratives and embodied modes of activism. As ARRCC is a multifaith organisation mainly concerned with climate change, a key part of its effectiveness is its ability to create a coherent multifaith narrative that people from many religions may relate to and has the power to inspire activism and change. The ARRCC website does this by imbuing its viewers with multifaith values and a shared narrative of ecological concern by instructing, influencing, and enthusing them to embody the modality of the climate activist. We will move to conclude that mastery of the online realm through “third spaces” and digital activism (Hoover and Echchaibi 2012; Tomalin et al. 2015), as well as the willingness to partake in “real-world”, embodied activism, are tools that have great potential to assist multifaith networks in their ability to counter climate change and to work toward Netpeace collaboratively. 2. Methodology This research is connected to a larger Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project, which examines the current trends and dynamics of religious diversity in Australia.1 Geraldine Smith, one of the co-authors of this article, is a PhD student working on this ARC project, co-supervised by
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